


Common Ground

by Writegirl



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Natasha Romanov, Clint Is a Good Bro, Comfort Food, Cooking, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Kid Natasha, Natasha Feels, Natasha Romanov Joins SHIELD, Natasha's Very Specific Skillset, Nick Fury Feels, Parent Nick Fury, Protective Phil Coulson, Red Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 09:03:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1773454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writegirl/pseuds/Writegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natalia Romanova was many things: a killer by thirteen, a Black Widow at fifteen, on the run from the Red Room by sixteen and captured by SHIELD at seventeen. </p><p> <br/><i>“You have a simple choice in front of you. Either you want to live, in which case you give us your total cooperation. Or you want to die, in which case the kill order will be carried out within the next ten minutes.” The agent stood and went to the door. “You have five minutes to make a decision.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Common Ground

**Author's Note:**

> This work contains no spoilers from any of the Marvel movies but was heavily inspired by all the Natasha/Fury scenes in CA: TWS (especially her quiet 'don't do this to me, Nick'). It's obvious that she respects him deeply, that she's willing to do anything for him, and it got me to wondering what he did to build that kind of rapport with her.

        Natalia Romanova was seventeen when she was brought to a safehouse outside Prague with a bullet hole in her leg, mind fuzzy from whatever tranquilizer she was injected with while being subdued in an alley. The team that captured her was good; she barely felt their presence before she was cornered on three sides, all avenues of escape cut off. She almost believed they were from the facility, but there were no uttered phrases that made her physically docile as they approached or flash of insignia known only to the initiated. 

        “Your superiors won’t let me live,” she said in Czech to the man who secured her wrists to a heavy metal table.

        Her captor smiled at her with genuine humor, wincing as it pulled at his split lip. “I think they’ll surprise you.”

        Natalia let her head fall forward and he leaned back out of range of her teeth. He already learned she wasn’t above biting when necessary. She hoped he had a lover; some soft, warm thing who would feel betrayed when she saw the vivid marks on his shoulder. “I doubt it.”

        He left her alone then, in a small room that smelled heavily of bleach with nothing but a chair bolted to the floor and a table that was too heavy to lift. She looked down at the length of her jeans; the blood-stained material was cut away, her thigh neatly bandaged. That must have happened after the tranquilizer because she had no memory of receiving medical attention. She flexed her thigh and smiled at the pained pull of the stitches. It wouldn’t do to get comfortable, not here in the hands of the enemy.

        This was wrong. She wasn’t supposed to be captured in an alley in Prague, certainly not by Americans. At least she assumed it was Americans, if the terrible Czech the only one of the three who brought her in spoke was an indication. Better them than her former comrades. Punishment for attempting to escape the Red Room was severe, and she never heard of anyone before her actually succeeding. Hopefully they had an agenda other than selling her back to her former countrymen. At best she was likely to receive cognitive sanctioning. Natalia suppressed a shudder as she thought of the chair, remembered the feel of electricity as it locked her muscles. A year ago she swore to herself that she would die before she let that happen. Never again would she let them take her away from herself for ends she wasn’t allowed to question. 

        She frowned as panic tried to fight its way to the surface. There was no point worrying over something that might not come to pass. She settled for closing her eyes and counting her breaths, keeping the inhales and exhales even. Beneath the astringent odor of bleach she could smell the metal of the table, the stony scent of concrete and a whiff of sewage from the industrial drain set in the floor. There were no traffic sounds, no voices or movement above, below or beyond the door to her small prison.

        Fifty-seven minutes later the door opened and a man she didn’t recognize entered, manila folder in hand. Unlike the others he wore a well-tailored suit instead of tactical gear. Natalia made out the shape of a gun against his left hip, another at his right ankle. The man himself was…average. Average height and build, but there was a spark behind his eyes, one that only those who dealt in their world with regularity possessed. No simple bureaucrat, this. He sat in the chair across from her and folded his hands loosely on the table.

       “Hello.” His voice was kind. “I’m Agent Phillip Coulson.”

       She stared through him, disdain oozing from every pore.

       If it bothered him, he didn’t show it. “My people say they had a hell of a time bringing you in,” he continued in English, opening the folder. “Two broken ribs, fractured jaw, three lost teeth, compound fracture of the forearm, innumerable bruises and cuts.” He leafed through the collection of medical reports with a careful eye. “For a single girl against three highly trained agents, that speaks volumes.”

       Natalia kept her expression bored, though she was crowing internally. It was an exceptional amount of damage even without fatalities. She was sure she’d driven a rib into the tall woman’s lung, but no matter.

       “You realize that team was sent specifically to neutralize you,” the man could have been discussing his laundry for all his inflection. “You’re a threat, and we are very good and taking care of threats. It was the team leader that made the call to bring you in instead. He’s the one with the broken ribs, by the way.” He closed the folder. “We have a simple choice in front of us. Either you want to live, in which case you give us your total cooperation. Or you want to die, in which case the kill order will be carried out within the next ten minutes.” The agent stood and went to the door. “You have five minutes to make a decision.”

        Natalia stared hard at the door as she counted the seconds. A year ago the choice would have been simple. She was supposed to die, that was the punishment for being captured. She was the knife in the darkness, the weapon of her country, and she would throw herself into an inferno before she allowed herself to be used against it. The agent would return, and she would tell him to finish what they started. 

       But she wasn’t that girl anymore.

       When the door opened and the agent entered she tilted her head back to look him in the eye. They were good eyes; wary but hopeful, so hopeful he wouldn’t have to order someone little more than a child killed. The thought almost made her laugh, because she’d never been a child. “I want to live.”

        

        ‘Living’ meant an amount of debriefings that would make her former superiors proud. The agency that captured her was SHIELD, something that until that moment she believed to be a ghost story told by her comrades. There were more small rooms, more agents who delved into her past with magnifying glasses. The file they had on her was already substantial, dating as far back as Drakov. She provided information about her training, about the Red Room and its goals. Clarified her ‘separation date’ from Russian Intelligence and what her first official operation as a free agent entailed. She never volunteered information, only answered their questions. If there were questions that should have been asked that they missed, that was their problem. If she woke in a cold sweat some nights, _defector_ and _traitor_ clamoring in her mind loud enough to make her teeth chatter, that was hers.

        Two months came and went before they finished putting her through their paces. After the final debrief and a slew of medical tests she was marched before a tall, leather jacketed man. _Director Fury,_ the others she came in contact with named him. The man who ran SHIELD. He turned as they entered and she took in the set of his shoulders, the eye patch that didn’t hide the damage that spread outward across his temple and forehead. She felt her spine stiffen automatically at the aura of command he exuded. Here was no low level functionary. Here was someone who held her future in his hands. A future he could choose to crush despite her cooperation.

        “Ms. Romanova,” he said, gesturing to the chair across from him.

        She settled into it, feet flat on the floor, back straight, hands resting on her knees. A pose that was non-threatening, attentive, and submissive. _I’ve done everything you asked,_ it said. _I’m yours._

        His eye flicked downward. “How’s the leg?”

        “Acceptable.”

        His lip quirked at her flat answer. “My agents tell me you’ve been a model prisoner; cooperative, docile even. Not particularly chatty, but I think we can forgive that for now. You’ve filled some valuable holes in our intelligence.”

        Natalia blinked steadily, keeping herself calm by counting the beats of her heart. “I was told you would accept nothing less than my complete cooperation.”

        Fury stared at her, and she returned it, keeping her eyes focused on his good one. It was unnerving, her inability to discern what he was looking for. “Your code-name,” he said, breaking the tense silence. “Black Widow. It’s rare Russian Intelligence passed it on, let alone to someone so young.”

        It was a mark of honor. She was the youngest in the history of the program to earn the name by a decade. 

        “It’s been, what… twenty years since an active Black Widow was spotted on the intelligence radar?”

        “Twenty-two.” Not since Yelena Belova.

        Fury leaned back in his chair. “We have openings for people with your particular skill set in our organization, Ms. Romanova. You’ve agreed to work for us, but that doesn’t mean much when we had a gun to your head.” He paused but she didn’t protest. Neither of them could pretend she wasn’t there under some duress. “I need you to prove that SHIELD can trust you outside these walls before we let you back into the general population. For the time being you’ll be under my direct supervision, and since I don’t live at headquarters, you’ll be staying with me.” He pressed a button and the door opened behind her. “We’re leaving at six.”

        

        Fury didn’t lie. At six that evening two agents escorted her from her small quarters (cot, bathroom, closet) to the parking garage. She wore a new pair of jeans and a button down shirt, the rest of her clothing neatly folded in a black duffle bag. The clothes were given to her after her third day, complete with under things after she provided a list of her measurements and color preferences. It was the first thing that made her relax, since she doubted SHIELD would spend money buying clothing for someone they planned to execute.

        The Director gave her a once over when she stepped out of the elevator and gestured for her to slide into the back of a black sedan. Once they were outside the facility Natalia could see she was in Washington DC, the monuments they passed a dead giveaway. She hadn’t been there herself, not that she could remember, but she had memories of sitting in a room examining stills of the memorials.

        They rode in silence until the sedan pulled up in front of a two story house in a quiet neighborhood. Natalia walked behind Fury, eyes taking in the car down the street with two men sitting inside. A large van was across the street, and another occupied car at the other end of the block. They didn’t trust her, and she didn’t blame them. For all SHIELD knew she could be a plant, an attempt to get close to their leader to assassinate him. 

        Inside the house was sparsely decorated, more for function than comfort. The floors were hardwood, and she worked on memorizing which floorboards creaked as she walked over them. Fury marched her upstairs and opened a door.

        “This will be your room until we can find better arrangements, Ms. Romanova.”

        She took in the pale blue walls, the slender bed and matching cream dresser. Unlike the rest of the house the floor here was carpeted. There were multiple pillows on the bed; thick things she thought would suffocate her if she tried to use them. They were rich quarters, better than anything she had at the facility. Better than she thought anyone but herself would provide. 

        “The door locks,” Fury informed her. “The windows only open two inches, anything more and an alarm signals.” He fixed his eye on her. “The house’s security system his voice activated. It goes on when I say and goes off when I say. Try to leave and the house goes into lockdown. Actually make it out and you won’t get more than a block away. Are we clear?”

        “Yes.” It was a cage, no matter how gilded.

        “Good. Agent Gladys was responsible for takeout, and she knows the best places on three continents. She should be back in twenty minutes. Make yourself at home.” 

        Dinner was had in silence, meat and potatoes from cardboard boxes imprinted with the name of a restaurant she didn’t know. Natalia focused on her plate while he read through a thick file, cutting her meat into pieces before palming the slender steak knife. It was balanced wrong, useless for anything except slashing, but it would have to suffice. She fought temptation to try and read the file that kept Fry engrossed, focused on projecting disinterest. No doubt it was a test to see if she could be trusted to not snoop where she wasn’t wanted. She had years of experience not- seeing to draw from.

        After dinner she offered to wash their scant dishes, pleased when the missing knife went unnoticed. Fury retired to a study on the ground floor and she was left to her own devices. In short order her meager clothes were either hung up or folded away, so she wandered her new surroundings. Upstairs held another bedroom in the same pale shades as her own, what she assumed was the master bedroom (she refused to open the door), and a bathroom. By the time she had the layout of the house memorized, each common room measured in her strides, it was nearing nine. Soft music came from the downstairs office, the door closed.

        Upstairs she fell into the routine she developed at SHIELD. She was bathed and brushed by ten, dressed in an oversized t-shirt and shorts. She left the door to her bedroom slightly ajar in defiance of the perpetually closed, locked door of her quarters at SHIELD proper. There was a small shelf of books, but nothing that caught her interest. There were several stations on the television, and she stopped on a channel showing a bombed out embassy in Latveria, ‘Breaking News’ scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Thirteen Spaniards were killed including the ambassador. 

        It seemed Gurier found another hitter. 

        Natalia watched the news station until they began speculating on the whys and wherefores. She was aware of Fury passing by her door, stopping for several seconds before continuing on to his room. She flipped through other stations before turning the television off, plunging her room into darkness. The house was quiet; the only sound the crickets that chirped insistently in the night. She stared at her window, open the allowed two inches, and contemplated escape. She had money in several different accounts spread around the globe. If she could get free of SHIELD’s control it would be a simple thing to disappear: a bus to Mexico, a fishing trawl to Belize, and she would have access to half a million dollars and several different identities. All that required her getting out of the house undetected, past two two-man teams stationed at both ends of the block and whatever surveillance setup the van outside held. Not impossible, but extraordinarily difficult without any supplies.

        Or she could take the path of least resistance.

        Mind made up she padded into the bathroom. There were no cosmetics, but she made do. She was forbidden razors of any sort, but a kind woman at SHIELD provided her with depilatory cream when she complained. Her hair was long, a mass of bright red that curled softly past her shoulders that she brushed until it shone. The robe she found hanging in the closet was thin cotton and fell to her ankles. She slipped it on, rubbed color into her cheeks with the back of her hands and bit her lips until they were red and full. She wasn’t at her best, but she would do. 

        Her bare feet were silent on the cold floor. Small sensors blinked red in the darkness of each corner she passed. She made note of them for later, but so far no alarms sounded at her late night wandering. She paused outside the door to the master suite and listened for the telltale whir of a camera, but could hear nothing. Natalia hadn’t expected him to sleep in the same house with her. Ivan would scoff at the idea of letting an enemy be so close while he was vulnerable. There were too many possible scenarios to contemplate and not enough information to make an informed decision. 

        The knob turned silently beneath her hand and the door opened on well-oiled hinges. The room was carpeted like hers, and perhaps twice as big. Shades were drawn over the window, but they were sheer, allowing ample light to filter in. On the bed, asleep, was her target.

        He was no diplomat, this she already knew. The scars that traced his torso (the long puckered line left by a knife that skated his ribs, an indentation that looked to have been made by a high power rifle, a patch of burned skin that shone in the faint light) told of a life lived in the field. He was lithely muscled; not the heavy physique of some soldiers, but something closer to a swimmer. Without the added bulk of the trench coat and uniform he was surprisingly thin.

        “Is there a problem?”

        The words nearly startled her, said as they were without a noticeable change in his breathing pattern. His eyes opened (one dark, the other milky and likely blind) the smoothness of sleep leaving his features in favor of wary concern. Natalia stepped back to give him distance, shoulders loose to convey she hadn’t come to do harm. He sat up, blanket pooled at his waist.

        “No problem,” she soothed, adopting Natchka’s soft tones. Her hands went to the tie of her robe and his eyes followed. Slowly, she untied the knot. There was a flash of emotion as the garment split open and he realized she was bare beneath, there and gone before she could decipher it. His eye returned to hers and she shrugged the cotton off entirely. There was enough light in the room that she knew he could see all of her: slender limbs well muscled from training, breasts full and high, waist tapered and belly gently curved, skin pale blue in the scant light. Her handlers were always pleased with her body, another weapon she could wield in the name of the mother land. A weapon that never failed to entice her targets.

        Fury turned until he was facing her fully and gave her body a thorough once over, expression neutral. She felt a frisson of uncertainty at his lack of obvious desire but remained where she was. She had nothing to offer but herself, and that she could give freely if it meant her survival. When he stood she let the barest hint of a smile light her features ( _yes, I want this, I want you_ ). Fury went down on his haunches in front of her, not what she would have anticipated, but she placed a hand on his head in encouragement, braced for the feel of lips on her stomach.

        When he stood up she felt something brush against her backside and blinked when she realized it was the material of her robe. Fury’s eye locked onto hers as he slid the material up her arms, making sure each fit through its sleeve before folding the front over her breasts and tying the belt gently but firmly. 

        “You should get some sleep,” he told her, voice as empty of emotion as his face. “We have a long day tomorrow.” He turned her to the door.

        Natalia went, shame heating the skin of her chest. She fought the emotion down as she walked away. She was at the door when he spoke again.

        “Natalia?”

        She half turned. Fury was in bed again, back to her in an unfamiliar show of trust. She couldn’t remember consciously turning her back on someone she considered a threat, not since she was a small child. “Yes?”

        “You don’t have to sell yourself,” he told her. “Not here. Not anymore.”

        The rush of tears was unexpected, as was the thickness that clogged her throat. She left Fury’s bedroom as quietly as she entered, letting her feet catch on the creaking floorboards. Once she was in her room she locked the door and wedged the desk chair firmly against it. She waited, but no agents came to punish her for her trespass, nothing occurred but the passage of time.

        The next morning she dressed and went downstairs well before the sun rose. By the time Fury appeared, already dressed, she had several breakfast foods prepared. He raised an eyebrow at the open windows and silver tea service on the table but said nothing as he took a seat. She pulled a plate from the oven and set it in front of him. 

        “How’d you sleep?” He asked.

        She shrugged as she filled the larger silver pot with boiling water. “Well enough.” When she gestured to his empty mug he pushed it to her.

        “Good.”

        She filled the mug a third of the way with tea (Russian Caravan, and it couldn’t be coincidence that he had that particular tea just sitting in a cabinet), then topped it with hot water before finishing the cup with a spoon of apricot jam. Fury accepted the mug back and drank slowly. She imagined some of the strain around his eye eased, but dismissed it out of hand as she made her own tea.

        They ate in relative silence.

        

        They fell into a routine after that. Breakfast and dinner would be had together when time allowed. Breakfast was Natalia’s domain with Fury even going as far as giving Agent Gladys permission to take her shopping for what she needed and providing a modest budget. Dinner was either brought or prepared. During the day she followed him to SHIELD for training and they would part ways until it was time to return to his home. 

        “So, how’s tricks?”

        Natalia didn’t stiffen when the words came from above her, only slammed another clip in place and took her stance. The shooting range was usually empty that time of morning, her only companion the range master who nodded when she came and went. There was a soft thump behind her, the sound of a body hitting the floor out of arms reach.

        “Most people I do that to jump half a foot,” the man said as he came to her side.

        She recognized him from the night she was brought in. His hair was different, lighter than the dark brown she remembered, his tactical gear exchanged for a simple shirt and jeans. “Is Fury testing me?”

        “Fury?” He rolled his eyes. “Fury’s orders are to give you space until further notice.” He stuck out a hand. “We didn’t officially get a chance to meet. Clint Barton.”

        She eyed the hand. “Natalia.”

        He turned his attention to her lane. “Pretty good,” he grinned. “Bet I can do better.”

        Natalia frowned. She had five rounds in the ten ring, the center of which was almost torn out with the grouping of her shots. “I have nothing to bet.”

        He picked up the nine millimeter she’d chosen for practice. “I win, you buy me lunch.”

        She smiled sharply. “And if I win?”

        Barton’s answering smile was sharper than her own. “You get bragging rights.”

        “It doesn’t seem like a fair exchange.”

        “Trust me, it is.”

  

        They were on their third week when Natalia reached across the table at breakfast and set down the steak knife she took that first night. Its absence had to have been noted (there were only four), but he never asked for it. Fury picked up the knife, examined it, and then set it down by his plate before reaching into his pocket.

        “Thought you might like this better, anyway,” he said, handing her a thin sheath.

        The sheath held a slender black blade as long as her hand from finger tips to wrist. She pressed a fingernail in a small depression and a hard section of plastic came away to reveal a whetstone. She tested the blade against her thumb and shivered when it tried to catch on the skin.

        Natalia tried to say _thank you,_ but the words caught in her throat. A weapon didn’t thank its owner for providing tools. A weapon accepted what it was given. She secured the blade to her jeans and tugged her shirt down until it was covered.

        “If my agents start showing up with holes I’ll know who to blame.”

        “One agent,” she corrected, because Barton had somehow made it his mission to speak to her every day after their impromptu shooting contest. She didn’t win (how could she, when he had a perfect circular grouping in the ten ring within a millimeter of each other?), but she was determined to best him at something. 

        “Stay away from Barton’s eyes and hands. Anything else is fair game.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed ^_^


End file.
